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On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Danalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples

As usual, a pilot put off iot on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island

I to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city

The ship drew on and had safely passed the strait, which sone and Jaros islands; had doubled Poue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and spanker, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune could have happened on board However, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself, for she bore doith all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the anchor a-cockbill, the jib-boo by the side of the pilot, as steering the Pharaon towards the narrow entrance of the inner port, was a young ilant eye, watched every motion of the ship, and repeated each direction of the pilot

The vague disquietude which prevailed a the spectators had so much affected one of the crowd that he did not await the arrival of the vessel in harbor, but juside the Pharaon, which he reached as she rounded into La Reserve basin

When the young man on board saw this person approach, he left his station by the pilot, and, hat in hand, leaned over the ship's bulwarks

He was a fine, tall, slihteen or twenty, with black eyes, and hair as dark as a raven's wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to er

"Ah, is it you, Dantes?" cried the man in the skiff "What's the matter? and why have you such an air of sadness aboard?"

"A great reat misfortune, for me especially! Off Civita Vecchia we lost our brave Captain Leclere"

"And the cargo?" inquired the owner, eagerly

"Is all safe, M Morrel; and I think you will be satisfied on that head But poor Captain Leclere--"